The Mower Poems, Songs and Sonnets (Ridgewell)

When rhyme recalls us to each death we have
unseen then nothing sounds the same as life.
The eyes roll back, the mass that’s always there.
We dance the ordered steps, obscure the sense
of thought: white owls dress in this white moon.
So blind, their bodies slant the rain that shines
On thatch. Say kind, the ports are eyes, say death,
say no more sea. What fields can’t tell, our hands
are tied, they grow. This straw man born from rags
disrobes the birds, surveys the earth that rolls
away, no more. It glares. It wants to stitch
your mouth, it feels. Your fingers reach the lips,
they taste like grass, is death, this ridge of sound.